[Tentative edition; not for general circulation] 


‘‘ Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel 
to every creature.” (Mark xvi: 15.) 

“The field is THE WORLD.” (Matt, xiii: 38.) 

“The world is MY PARISH.” (John Wesley.) 

OUR PARISH 

AT HOME 
AT LARGE 
ABROAD 


“A whole Christ for my salvation; a whole 
Bible for my staff; a whole Church for my com¬ 
munion and the whole world for my Parish.” 
(Chrysostom.) 


Published by the Forward Movement Committee 
of the Board of Foreign Missions 
of the Presbyterian (j jlhurch in the U. S. A. 
156 Fifth Avenue, New York 

1906 


F. M. Series, No. ig 






T he following paper is offered as a slight contribu¬ 
tion toward the consideration of a subject of 
vital importance to every phase of the work of the 
Church. It is written from no mere theoretical stand¬ 
point, but out of an intensely practical experience extend¬ 
ing over a wide range. It is not assumed that this will be 
received as the last word on the subject. The fact is, the 
first word has scarcely yet been clearly spoken. The mat¬ 
ter will be looked at from widely divergent points of view. 
Bat if all personal and partisan interests are left out, and 
the one aim is to bring in the Kingdom of God, the mind 
of the Master will be made clear, competition between 
one cause and another will give place to cordial co¬ 
operation, and a new day of spiritual quickening and pros¬ 
perity will ere long dawn upon the Church. 




OUR PARISH 

AT HOME, AT LARGE, ABROAD 


U NLESS a church has a debt, it is not really 
prosperous,” once remarked a pastor; and 
this is true, although in a sense far different 
from that which was intended. Every church owes 
it as a debt to itself, as well as to God and mankind, 
to help give the Gospel to the whole world—“debtor 
both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and 
to the foolish.” Nor is this a debt of mere sentiment, 
either; it may be measured to some extent even in 
terms of dollars and cents. But many a church, even 
when making proper provision for its own mainten¬ 
ance, fails to deal in an equally sensible way with the 
larger obligation to project its power to the uttermost 
parts of the earth. Sometimes this is due merely to 
the lack of a clear-cut business-like system of benevo¬ 
lence. But in many cases it is owing to an utter fail¬ 
ure to apprehend the fundamental principle that the 
church is designed to be. 

The Force and Not the Field 

“The Held is the and the church exists pri¬ 

marily and essentially for the express purpose of giv¬ 
ing the Gospel to the world. Each church should be 
brought to realize that it is to be a base of operation 
for the evangelization of the world. Its parish is 
three-fold: (i) The local work, or its Parish at 

Home; (2) the national work, or its Parish at Large; 
(3) the world-wide work, or its Parish Abroad. If 








A 

Distinc¬ 
tion with a 
Difference 


only this distinction were kept clear, it would be found 
far easier to provide for the wlork at home as well as 
abroad. 

Consider carefully this obligation and how it is met: 

1. The Local Work. Most churches have long ago 
come to the conclusion that the collection is an utterly 
unreliable method of providing for self-support. If 
the coal-merchant were expected to lay in the winter’s 
supply for the church, on the assurance that in the 
spring a collection would be taken and whatever might 
then be contributed would be turned over to him, the 
furnaces of our churches would soon be cold. Gradu¬ 
ally, even self-interest has compelled a saner policy, 
and many of the churches now depend for their local 
expenses upon individual subscriptions, paid in envel¬ 
opes on the weekly plan. 

2. Home Missions. It is of the utmost importance 
that we should give the Gospel to the unevangelized 
in our own country. The wards of our nation, whether 
red or black, the congested populations in the slums 
of our great cities, the immigrants pouring in upon 
us, all call loudly out of their dire need for the 
Gospel which alone can offset the corruption and sin 
in our own land. Not in the very least degree should 
these needs be minimized in our thought. Nei^erthe- 
less, it is necessary to distinguish clearly as to our rela¬ 
tive responsibility for this work in our country, as com¬ 
pared with that vaster work which, being more distant, 
as well as more difficult, is more liable to be overlooked 
and left undone. Of the eight Boards of our church. 

Seven are in Fact Home Missions 

in one form or another. Whether the money contrib¬ 
uted goes to erect church buildings, or to furnish 
good literature, or to establish Sunday Schools and 


2 


churches on our far frontie*r, or to educate a future 
ministry, or for ministerial relief, it is expended within 
onr oum land, and more or less affects our own inter¬ 
ests as a nation. Undoubtedly far more ought to be 
done than is being done in all of these directions, and 
this would soon become possible if a better basis were 
adopted for our entire scheme of benevolence—a basis 
which would bring the claim home in a more intelligi¬ 
ble way to the consciousness and conscience and will 
of each individual member of our churches. For this 
shall we not both importunately pray and zealously 
work? But will not this hope be all the longer de¬ 
ferred, if the appeal for this work at home be made to 
rest upon the fallacy that ‘‘we are first to save America, 
in order to save the world?” For this contradicts one 
of the most fundamental principles of Christ, the law 
that “he that loveth his life shall lose it,” which is no 
less true of an aggregation of individuals than it is of 
each individual. If it be true that the individual be¬ 
liever shall find his life by losing it, it must be no less 
true of the Christian Church and of this Christian na¬ 
tion. The truer position for us to take is, to 

Save the World, and, in so Doing, We Shall 
^ ♦ Save America 

and the Church and ourselves. 

3. Foreign Missions. The Board of Foreign Mis¬ 
sions is in fact a Board of Boards, charged with the 
overwhelming responsibility of carrying on, far from 
the base of supplies, in the face of hoary systems of 
heathenism and despite difficulties humanly insuper¬ 
able, the work which all the other seven Boards of our 
church are carrying on under more favorable condi¬ 
tions at home; and over and above all this, the Foreign 
Board bears the responsibility for a world-wide medi¬ 
cal service. 


The 

Master* 

Method 


3 




It is true that the Boai^s of Education, College Aid 
and Ministerial Relief are tributary, in some degree, 
to Foreign Missions, as well as to Home Missions, and 
it is but fair in determining the proportion of our debt 
to the several causes, local, national and world-wide, 
that this should be taken into account. But in measur¬ 
ing the relative responsibility for Home Missions, is 
not this more than offset by the far greater demands 
made upon us on our Foreign Field? 

Where the Foreign Missions appeal is responded to, 
the heart will be open to every other claim. This is 
the “Open Sesame” to unlock the door of the self- 
centered church. For the greater includes the less, 
and when once the heart has been drawn out “to the 
uttermost part of the earth,” there will be sympathy 
for every need nearer home. Necessarily “the light 
that shines the farthest, shines brightest nearest home.” 

Is it not high time to squarely face the situation as 
regards our relative responsibility at the present time 
for these several sides of the work of our church? 
Look more closely at it: 

The Field. In our own country, since one in four 
of the population is a communicant member of a 
Protestant Christian church, our proportion of the 
community outside the church might b» taken^to be 
three times the number of our communicants, but let 
us allow very liberally and reckon the population for 
which our church is responsible, at four millions. On 
the other hand, in heathen lands those to whom we 
have deliberately made ourselves responsible to give 
the Gospel, number about 

One Hundred Million Non-Christians, 

reckoning as our own proper constituency only the 
population of those sections where we have preempted 
the field and where, in accordance with the principle 


4 




of comity, other missionary bodies will not feel free 
to work. And in this field of ours, they are perishing 
at the rate of a thousand a day without ever having 
had a chance to receive the Gospel. 

The Force. For four millions of people in this 
country, mostly nominally Christian, we have a force of 
some 7,750 men, or one man to each 516 of our part of 
the population. For the one hundred million non- 
Christians abroad, we have at present 280 ordained 
and 81 unordained workers, making in alF36i men, 
clerical and lay, or one to 277,000—giving, on an aver¬ 
age, to each of our male missionaries a population con¬ 
siderably greater than that of Wyoming and Nevada, 
with Alaska twice over, all combined, or more than the 
population of Washington, or of Milwaukee, or of 
New Orleans. If our field at home were manned in 
the same ratio as our field abroad, w(e should have 
blit fourteen Presbyterian ministers for the entire com¬ 
munity of our Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America. 

The Funds. For our own congregational expenses 
last year we spent a little more than thirteen and a 
quarter millions of dollars. For Home Missions, in 
its varied aspects—after deducting that proportion of 
contributions for Education, College Aid and Minis¬ 
terial Relief which is fairly chargeable to Foreign Mis¬ 
sions—we contributed, as a church, almost four and 
a half millions, or an aggregate of nearly $18,000,000 
for the work of our church in this country. At the 
same time for our Foreign Mission work, for the evan¬ 
gelization of one hundred million non-Christians, there 
was contributed by living donors, adding one-twen¬ 
tieth of all that was contributed for the three Boards 
already mentioned to that given through the Board 
of Foreign Missions, less than one million dollars, or, 
to be exact, $973,633. 


A Serious 
Lack of 
Proportion 


Worse 
than a 

Basis 


5 




These factors, then, in the equation of the church’s 
debt may be summed up as follows: 


TME FIELD THE FORCE 




Is it not evident that what is needed ‘is, to put the 
support of the work which we have to do beyond our 
church doors on just as stable and liberal a basis as 
that of our own local self-support, viz : by Individual 
subscription, payable weekly, as an act of worship ? 


6 

















If it be objected that it is not practicable to secure a 
separate weekly subscription for each of our eight or 
more authorized benevolent causes, we grant it. But, 
as a matter of fact, there are essentially only tzvo 
‘'causes ’'—Home Missions in its several aspects and 
Foreign Missions. 

Indeed some churches, in order to escape the endless 
appeals for “z collection,” have resolved these to one. 

Many a pastor finds himself at his wits’ end to in¬ 
vent some new way to plead for each of the Boards 
year after year. While many a church member, know¬ 
ing that the end and aim of each such appeal is to be 
a collection, complains of the ''everlasting begging 
for money” and makes this an excuse for staying away 
altogether on such occasions. 

Unwilling to allow the missionary enterprises of the 
church to be left longer at the mercy of the elements 
and subject to the caprice of those who may shirk 
their responsibility altogether, if absent when the plate 
is passed, some churches have taken the first steps to¬ 
ward a better system by seeking to secure a weekly 
subscription from each member for all of "the benevo¬ 
lences,” en bloc. 

While undoubtedly the plan of an omnibus subscrip¬ 
tion is far better than the passing of the plate, yet 
experience has showin that the sense of individual re¬ 
sponsibility is largely lost in a generalization which 
takes in all the earth. Comparatively few contributors 
exercise their discretion as stewards in designating 
the proportion upon which their contribution shall be 
divided. And especially is the appeal of the more dis¬ 
tant part of the work obscured when thus merged with 
the many claims that lie nearer at hand and are pressed 
from so many different standpoints. Yet our Lord has 
embodied the commission to "go and give the Gospel 


A Make¬ 
shift 


Wanted 
“the Pas¬ 
sing “ of 
the Pas¬ 
sing of the 
Plate 


7 



A More 

Excellent 

Way 


to every creature” as a part of His last will and testa¬ 
ment to the church. Every cause is suffering because 
of our shameful failure to fulfill this trust. Every 
cause will gain by our obeying this command of the 
Master. 

There is no lack of money; what is lacking is love 
and prayer and knowledge, in order that the will of 
our Lord may be done. We must speedily adjust our¬ 
selves to the present situation, largely increasing our 
gifts and likewise rectifying the ratio of our giving. 
Is it not high time to be adopting a better basis for the 
payment of ‘^our church debt” and more earnestly set 
about doing our part in the evangelization of the 
world? Would not some such division as the follow¬ 
ing be a better standard, toward which we should at 
once begin to work, however inadequate it may be as 
affects our vaster Parish Abroad? 



HOW TO DIVIDE $1 


By such a distribution every hundred members con¬ 
tributing, on an average, $i.oo a week each, for all 


8 






the work of the church, local, national, and world-wide, 
would give annually: 


For the Parish at Home . $2,600 

For the Parish at Large . 1,300 

For the Parish Abroad . 1,300 


or an aggregate of. $5,200 


And, at even that low rate, the contributions of our 
church, as a whole, would amount, annually, to almost 
sixtv million dollars, or 


For the Parish at Home. $30,000,000 

For the Parish at Large . 15,000,000 

For the Parish Abroad . 15,000,000 


If $1.00 a week for all objects is regarded a higher 
average per member than is practicable, cut this esti¬ 
mate down one-half and the gain would still be im¬ 
mense. 

The proportion indicated above may be modified, but Down to 
should not every church adopt a standard which would Bed-rock 
-embody the following cardinal principles, viz.: 


1. That every member of the Body of Christ, being 
under Covenant to help carry out the will of the Head, 
is privileged to have an intelligent, prayerful and 
practical part in fulfilling the Great Commission, to 
“go and give the Gospel to every creature”, if not 
in person then by proxy, contributing for the support 
not only of the Parish at Home, but likewise of the 
Parish at Large and Abroad according to the Scriptural 
Rule of Three in I Corinthians xvi; 2 . 

“ Let every one of you (INDIVIDUALLY) 

lay by him In store on the First Day of the week 

(SYSTEMATICALLY) 

as God has prospered him.” (PROPORTIONATELY) 


9 










2, That the entire church, being essentially a Mis¬ 
sionary Society, the object of which is to aid in the 
evangelization of the world, and every member of the 
church being a member for life of said Society and bound 
to do all in his power for the accomplishment of this 
object, the church should at least contribute no less for 
extending the Kingdom outside than is spent upon its 
own support, and not less for the evangelization of the 
world, than for the work within our own country. 

Upon this better plan, then, it is proposed to: 

(1) Seek to secure a systematic and proportionate 
subscription from everyone, including each man, wo¬ 
man and child, to be paid weekly, in worship, for the 
support of (a) The Parish at Home, (b) The Parish 
at Large, (c) The Parish Abroad, designating, if de¬ 
sired, how (b) is to be distributed among the several 
Home Boards, or, failing such designation, the Session 
would determine a ratio on which it would be divided. 

(2) Supply each subscriber with a distinct set of 
envelopes for each of these three objects. Or two en¬ 
velopes, or even one, may be made to serve the pur¬ 
pose, when the same Treasurer handles the accounts, 
the required separation being made on his books. 

(3) Maintain a steady and systematic process of edu¬ 
cation, including the work of all the Boards, but pre¬ 
serving a due sense of proportion between the claims 
of our vastly greater and needier work in the world¬ 
wide Parish Abroad, as compared with that’ in our 
own land. 

Make H not prepared to thus adjust the entire scheme of 
a start benevolence at once, a beginning may first be made 
by adopting the plan of individual, systematic subscrip¬ 
tions for the support of the Parish Abroad, only. No 
matter what the present plan may be, whether by col¬ 
lection or omnibus pledge, every member who is not 


10 


already contributing systematically and proportion¬ 
ately, for the carrying out of the Great Commission 
should be offered the privilege of doing so, the con¬ 
tribution for the various Boards that are charged with 
the various phases of the work in this country—the 
Parish at Large—continuing as hitherto, but eliminat¬ 
ing Foreign Missions from this altogether, if deemed 
best. 

Each church would in this way come to bear a 
worthier share in the evangelization of the world, and 
have its own Parish Abroad, either undertaking the 
support of a particular station, wholly or in part, with 
which it can be connected by a Living Chain of com¬ 
munication ; or else extending its interest to the whole 
work throughout the world-wide field. As the work 
of making Christ known to the whole world, is thus 
brought home to the consciousness and conscience of 
each individual member of the church, and the heart 
is opened to this primary claim of Christ, it will not 
be long before all the rest of the church’s work will, 
likewise, be put upon the same stable basis of an indi¬ 
vidual subscription. 

And when this is done and the collection is super¬ 
seded by an individual, systematic and proportionate 
offering, given in worship, every interest of the church, 
both near and far, will be abundantly supplied. 

Take, as a single case in point, the experience of a a case in 
country church of 264 members. summoning its Point 

members, individually, to systematically support a Par¬ 
ish Abroad (in China) the annual contributions for 
‘‘Foreign Missions” aggregated $150; afterward $948. 

Those for Home Missions (in its several aspects) 
which before aggregated $146, afterward amounted to 
$998, every Board receiving from two to four times 
as much as before. And a balance of some v$400 zvas 


1 


II 



carried over into the nezv hscal year, to the credit of 
the local current account. 

When we have thus put the need that is direst and 
most distant in the very forefront of our plans—set¬ 
ting before the church on a scale far beyond what has 
ever been .seriously considered hitherto, a great objec¬ 
tive, proportionate to our resources, both of money and 
of men, demanding our best, appealing not to the petty 
but to the heroic and involving real self-sacrifice of 
time, talent and treasure—then and not until then will 
the church realize her owni divine destiny. 

Shall we not at once gird ourselves for the larger 
task before us? If we do not evangelize, we shall 
surely fossilize. And we are certainly in honor bound 
either to evangelize our whole Parish or else to evacu¬ 
ate so much of it as we are not prepared to evangelize. 
Which is to be done, should be settled soon. We be¬ 
lieve that the church will see to it that the Parish 
Abroad shall be evangelized. And in order to do this, 
each Parish at Home must be made to realize that it is 
not itself the principal part of the field, but rather 
the foree to evangelize the Parish at Large and 
Abroad. So shall the Kingdom come, and the church 
be revived, and the return of the King be hastened! 


JAMES A. BEAVER, Bellefonte, Pa. 

JOHN H. CONVERSE, Philadelphia 
E. A. K. HACKETT, Fort Wayne, Ind. 

ALFRED E. MARLING, New York 

DANIEL ROGERS NOYES, St. Paul 
L. H. SEVERANCE, New York 

JOHN WANAMAKER, Philadelphia 
DAVID McCONAUGHY, Secretary, NewjYork 

The Forward Moveme7it Committee, 


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